This blog contains lessons learned by me through the process of mapping for Single Player games, primarily, Half Life 2, Portal and Left 4 Dead (yes Left 4 Dead can be considered a single player game).
This blog's focus is on the player experience. To hell with the nuts and bolts of the level editor, the entities, models and brushes. This blog is about coming up with a final result when it's all put together.
How does the player feel about the experience?

Saturday, 24 December 2011

In response to the release of Daylight I've had lots of comments... mostly positive however there was one player who didn't like the mod. The natural reaction is to reject such negative feedback and focus on the positive. I sulked for a little while after receiving a Think Twice rating from this guy but now it's time to really look at his comments and consider what is driving his point of view.

Here's the post in full:

------------------------After all that praise I was shocked when faced actual game.

You can tell me whatever you want but this is my opinion.

This is a collection of bad gameplay choices! You can clearly say – environment was build around puzzles, not puzzles were made to fit into environment. Result: we are in abstract levels (never had a feeling of real place while playing) doing far-fetched puzzles. If I was their beta-tester I would say them to change A LOT of details. Because for very first playthrough they just too… unobvious at all to say the least.I don’t know where to start… I was stuck at SECOND puzzle like for 10 minutes. So we have: ladder and gas canister on the rope. The rope is too short. So what we gonna do?.. I even tried throwing garbage cans to cut the rope until ACCIDENTALLY at some dark place… God, I wanted to kick something!This gap at strider part MUST be removed. The strider alone is enough! Besides it looks absolutely illogical and out of place.After climbing up at train part I faced the fence. Why is it where? Is that really that necessary? By that moment I already knew the rules (environment build around puzzles) so it took only a couple seconds but anyway.The ‘getting shotgun’ part. Whaaat? No, it can’t be… All HL experience is asking me not to do it. It tells me I’m gonna die at the bottom of this pit. But I already know the rules (environment build around puzzles), so let’s try this anyway. Oh, look, it worked! Never gonna try it in any other mod though.Big zombie fight. I see something’s coming here. Hm-m wide areas, wide ladders. Hunters? Oh no, not the fast zombies again!!!Big fans. Oh, barnacles is not bothered at all. Duh!

I can continue my ranting but this is pointless. As far as R&D feels real this mod feels like a training for mapper. If you’re mapper you don’t have any problems playing through your maps because you know all the tricks. But please, try to watch them from the player side!

---------------------

OK. So lets break it down and really focus on the messages here.

This is a collection of bad gameplay choices! You can clearly say – environment was build around puzzles, not puzzles were made to fit into environment. Result: we are in abstract levels (never had a feeling of real place while playing) doing far-fetched puzzles. If I was their beta-tester I would say them to change A LOT of details. Because for very first playthrough they just too… unobvious at all to say the least.

So I take several points from this.

1: I didn't do enough of a good job disguising the fact that the puzzles were part of a "Real" world.2: I didn't do enough work to sell the environment to them3: The puzzles were too abstract and unobvious for them

And I honestly believe that every environment build in a professional game is built that way to service the game play, then disguised to look like a reality. I simply have not done as much work as I could have, disguising the game environment (i.e detailing).

I don’t know where to start… I was stuck at SECOND puzzle like for 10 minutes. So we have: ladder and gas canister on the rope. The rope is too short. So what we gonna do?.. I even tried throwing garbage cans to cut the rope until ACCIDENTALLY at some dark place… God, I wanted to kick something!

I had a feeling that, given that this puzzle was a training exercise, the sawblades should have been front and center. So lesson learned for me. Make sure, when doing player training, everything is laid out nicely for them. Once the new gameplay idea has been established you can be a little more sneaky.

This gap at strider part MUST be removed. The strider alone is enough! Besides it looks absolutely illogical and out of place.

With a little more detailing the gap would have looked perfectly reasonable but I do agree that as it stands is looks very basic and doesn't sell itself very well. As to the gameplay element that the gap creates, I think that's really down to personal playing style (I get the feeling he struggled with this section).

After climbing up at train part I faced the fence. Why is it where? Is that really that necessary? By that moment I already knew the rules (environment build around puzzles) so it took only a couple seconds but anyway.

The fence is there to separate peoples houses balconies from the train line facilities. I thought that would be a little more realistic than having peoples houses accessing an industrial area... so much for real...

The ‘getting shotgun’ part. Whaaat? No, it can’t be… All HL experience is asking me not to do it. It tells me I’m gonna die at the bottom of this pit. But I already know the rules (environment build around puzzles), so let’s try this anyway. Oh, look, it worked! Never gonna try it in any other mod though.

Here, once again, he's correct. I changed the rules of the HL world. For the cable cutting gameplay thing, I trained the player early, for this element though I did not. I simply gave the player no where else to go. Most players, once they had made the jump, really enjoyed the sense of achievement and the action hero feel it gave them. Hey ho.. once again, each to their own style of play.

There are only two areas with Fast Zombies and their both in the same area so I think it's justified. The playing areas are very different also. Clearly he doesn't like fast zombies...

Big fans. Oh, barnacles is not bothered at all. Duh!

Its true, the barnacles in the game are not affected by the trigger_push entity. I wanted them to all be blowing about in the wind but short of re-coding the game, there wasn't much I could do. Still the demand here is for reality and I failed to deliver...

I can continue my ranting but this is pointless. As far as R&D feels real this mod feels like a training for mapper. If you’re mapper you don’t have any problems playing through your maps because you know all the tricks. But please, try to watch them from the player side!

It's interesting that he sites Research And Development. If you haven't played it, go check it out right now. It's the best mod for HL2 ever made in my opinion. The structure is similar to Daylight, in that you face puzzle after puzzle. R&D however is detailed and polished to within an inch of it's life and as a result, sells the world far better than my mod ever could.The quality of R&D is certainly something I aspire to but it's very interesting that when players like the commentator above say "REAL" what they mean is, DETAIL.

The HL2 world is no more REAL than the Star Wars universe. Sure it shares common elements with our reality but on a whole it's a million light years away from the real world.

All in all he has picked up on some important failings on my part and lost of things to learn here.

Saturday, 17 December 2011

I've now convinced Philip over at Planetphillip.com to allow me to release my mod "Daylight".

I say allow me to because the man craves perfection and I have to thank him for pushing me to tidy up quite a few areas of the map before release.

There comes a time in every project when you feel you're done with it. You want to move on and try something new. In this case however I felt that I needed a big finale. A fifth map but due to mappers block I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I have no idea why that is.

In the new year I'll begin a new project but next time I won't start building until I know the exact layout and how it will all be integrated. Thus saving myself countless hours of staring at the hammer editor at a half finished map hoping for some inspiration.

Stupid Aazell...

Am looking forward to a new challenge though. Hope you enjoy the full mod. Here's the link:

About Me

It's always amazing to me how the online mapping community works for HL2 related games. People post screenshots and talk about the maps they're working on. Finally they release them only for their map to be crucified by the various reviewing sites most of the time..
I think the problem is that while you can learn all there is to know about the mapping editor software, you need to really explore and test the hell out of the gameplay with other people. As a lone mapper you are not capable of designing, building then testing your SP maps effectively because you know exactly what is coming round the corner at any given moment...
Also there seems to be very little information shared about good gameplay vs bad. People seem to just assume that if someone has some skill they will suddenly know all these gameplay elements automatically. Gameplay is always something that is drastically overlooked when designing new maps.
So in my frustration I decided to write blogs that focus entirely on gameplay.